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Thursday, 11 September 2014

MIKE OLDFIELD: THE STUDIO ALBUMS 1992-2003

All Of The Musician’s Warner Bros. Albums Come Together For An Eight-CD Set

Available On October 20th From Rhino

Select Albums Will Also Be Released On 180-Gram Vinyl (10th November)

Mike Oldfield is best-known for his 1973 one-man symphony, Tubular Bells, a chart topper in his native England and a Grammy® winner in 1975. During his decade-long stint at Warner Bros., the musician and composer released four sequels, as well as four eclectic studio albums.

Rhino collects all eight albums for an anthology presented in a clamshell box.

THE STUDIO ALBUMS 1992-2003 will be available on October 20th at retail outlets as an eight-CD collection. A digital version can be downloaded. Additionally, Tubular Bells II, The Songs Of Distant Earth, Voyager, and Tubular Bells III will be available individually on 180-gram vinyl, on 10th November.

After leaving Virgin Records, Oldfield joined the Warner Bros. roster in 1992 and released his first sequel, Tubular Bells II, which climbed to the top of the chart in England. Tom Newman (who engineered the original) and Trevor Horn joined Oldfield as producers for the album, which includes the singles “Sentinel,” “Tattoo” and “The Bell.” Another sequel arrived in 1998 with Tubular Bells III, which was followed a year later by another installment in the series, The Millennium Bell. With Tubular Bells 2003, Oldfield revisited the original album and re-recorded it so he could take advantage of technological advances in the studio that were unavailable to him in the early Seventies.

The other four albums heard in this collection reflect a wide range of musical styles, starting with his follow-up to Tubular Bells II, 1994’s The Songs of Distant Earth. A novel by the same name inspired him to record the album. The book was written by sci-fi master Arthur Clarke. Clarke approved of the results and even wrote a forward for the album.

Oldfield returned in 1996 with an album that marked a dramatic stylistic departure. Voyager is a Celtic-themed album that’s filled mainly with traditional Scottish and Irish songs. To record the music, Oldfield used a mix of traditional, acoustic instruments as well as synthesizers. For 1999’s Guitars, the musician recorded all of the music using only electric, acoustic and synthesizer guitars. The millennium Bell was written to usher in the new Millennium at a live concert in the center of Berlin in front of 500,000 people.